Google, Apple ban TikTok download in India after Madras HC order

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday refused to lift the ban on TikTok and set April 24 the next hearing date.

SNS Web | New Delhi | April 17, 2019 12:19 pm

A logo of TikTok app (Photo: AFP)

Google and Apple have blocked the download of TikTok from Play Store and App Store respectively in India in compliance with the Madras High Court’s order prohibiting downloading of the Chinese app.

After the Supreme Court refused to stay the Madras High Court’s TikTok ban order issued on 3 April, the government had asked tech giants Google and Apple to comply with the directive.

Quoting sources, a PTI report said instructions in this regard were sent to the two companies on Monday after the Supreme Court refused to interfere with the Madras High Court’s order. On 15 April, the apex court fixed April 22 as the next date for hearing.

A Google spokesperson told IANS: “As a policy, we don’t comment on individual apps but adhere to the law in countries we operate in.”

TikTok said in a statement that the company has faith in the Indian judicial system.

“We are optimistic about an outcome that would be well received by over 120 million monthly active users in India, who continue using TikTok to showcase their creativity and capture moments that matter in their everyday lives,” a TikTok spokesperson said.

On April 3, the Madras High Court had in an interim order directed the Centre to ban Tiktok app, after concerns were raised about access to pornographic content through it. The court had also restrained the visual and social media from telecasting through the app, noting that children were being exposed to inappropriate material.

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday refused to lift the ban on TikTok and set April 24 the next hearing date.

Owned by Chinese company ByteDance, Tiktok app allows users to create short videos and share them.

These user-created videos that often contain memes, lip-syncing songs and sometimes sleazy posts regularly find ways to other popular social media sites including Facebook, WhatsApp and ShareChat. These are the platforms where most adult social media users are now getting introduced to TikTok.

“We have removed over 6 million videos that violated our terms of use and community guidelines, following an exhaustive review of contents generated by our users in India,” the company had earlier said in the statement.